Setting up in Europe can have tax advantages for a US company. Folks like Sun Microsystems, Nike, and Coca Cola have shell companies there for tax purposes. Royalties on earnings that go through a holding corp are tax exempt. Of course, if you want to bring that into the US, the Treasury then wants a slice, but so long as you use the capital for European investments, it's a neat way of leveraging earnings.

Having overseas holdings also spreads the risk. For example, my current UK pension plans are doing much better than my US because of differences in allocations and the relative values of dollars and sterling.

When Mark Linden took over last year, he was explicit about the notion of growth, and taking advantage of a global economy is par for the course if you are in expansion mode.